SaaStr

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Go Hire That Missing VP! The best way to get out of a hole is to hire a great VP. A great VP of Sales. Well, stop saying you cant hire anyone. And just go finally hire her. Worst case, they still use it and are happy, and churn less. Everyone lowered the hiring bar in the Boom. Of Marketing.

Sales Hiring 267

Sales Hiring SaaS Venture Capital Healthcare 267

SaaStr

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Who should you hire, with limited budget? A VP of Sales? A truly great hire is >always< accretive. Hire anyone truly great you can find. And he was proud he’d just hired a VP of Sales at a below-market rate. You don’t want to save money on a great hire. In Just 2 Sales Cycles.

Sales Hiring 343

Sales Hiring Headcount Engineering Banking 343

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

We’ve talked about how all the Second Timers are hiring in customer success way early , ahead of sales, ahead of revenue. To hire in customer success. First, let’s make a rule, a compact, and a commitment: You Must Hire your First Customer Success Manager as a “Single Digit” Hire.

Sales Hiring 293

Sales Hiring Customer Success Headcount Churn 293

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2020

I say think about it differently: First, you will be shocked — shocked — at how little complaints are correlated to renewal rates and customer “happiness” The customers that are really going to churn because they are so frustrated they aren’t going to renew … they don’t complain. But she can listen.

Sales Hiring 337

Sales Hiring Customer Success Customer Support Revenue 337

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

That when you make a mis-hire, you'll always look back and say you should have made a change 3-4 month earlier? When to hire them. Some classics here: How My VP, Sales Doubled Our Sales in 90 Days. If Your VP Sales Isn’t Going to Work Out — You’ll Know in 30 Days. Your VP of Sales Shouldn’t Be Perfect.

Sales Hiring 259

Sales Hiring Part-Time VPE Scale Underperforming Technical Team 259

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

How Do You Sift Out the Bitter and Broken Individuals When Hiring? If it’s a role you’ve never hired, find someone great at it and have them do your final interview. For sales, product, or customer success, the best question you could ask is, “What would you do your first couple of weeks?” Don’t hire those people to lead.

Sales Hiring 277

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 277

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

For example, instead of saying, “We’ll hit $10M ARR in two years,” break it down: “We’ll grow from $1M to $3M ARR by expanding our sales team and doubling our lead generation, then scale from $3M to $10M by launching into a new vertical.” What’s your churn rate? But that vision needs to be supported by a clear, step-by-step plan.

Scale 203

Scale Sales Hiring Benchmarks Churn 203

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

Is your CS team growing as fast as your sales team? If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. This one isn’t nearly as risky as a VP of Sales , or a VP of Marketing hire. You’ll make a good hire. So hire your first as soon as you can. >>

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 246

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

Is your CS team growing as fast as your sales team? If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. This one isn’t nearly as risky as a VP of Sales , or a VP of Marketing hire. You’ll make a good hire. So hire your first as soon as you can. >>

Sales Hiring 244

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 244

SaaStr

DECEMBER 14, 2020

“Churn” is a term we all use in SaaS as a core metric, but its roots, as near as I remember and can tell, come from our B2C colleagues. Folks churn out of their Verizon plan, their Netflix subscription, etc. And sometimes they’ll churn even just for a modestly better deal. the dynamics are similar.

Churn 362

Churn Sales Hiring Systems Review B2C 362

SaaStr

MAY 24, 2025

If you can maintain this pace and improve your metrics (like NRR and sales efficiency), you could still build a significant, valuable B2B business over time. Fundraising and Hiring Challenges Raising a Series A or B at 35% growth will be essentially impossible. If youre selling to SMBs, churn can be a killerfix it now.

Sales Hiring 171

Sales Hiring B2B Churn Retention 171

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2021

We put out a call on Twitter the other day for folks’ best tips on what has really lowered churn for them this year. A few of the best: “Hire more relationship managers. Pay sales reps on renewals (enough to keep them from overselling year 1). Hire 9s & 10s ONLY. Are you segmenting churn?

Churn 326

Churn Sales Hiring Headcount Technical Review 326

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

A long-time reader wrote in to ask a question that pretty much everyone asks some variant of: If you had to force rank these items in terms of what we should primarily be looking for in these first sales reps, how would you rank them? And later, your VP of Sales can do the hiring. Later, you can hire all types.

Sales Hiring 345

Sales Hiring Sales SaaS Churn 345

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

379: From how many reps to hire, to compensation models, here are the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales teams and how to avoid them. Announcer: In today’s SaaStr Insider, SaaStr CEO and founder, Jason Lemkin, shared the top 10 mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales team.

Sales Hiring 232

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Sales 232

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 17, 2025

It is calculated by taking the annual recurring revenue of a cohort of customers from 1 year ago, and comparing it to the current annual recurring revenue of that same set of customers (even if you experienced churn). In theory, any growth rate is possible with an unlimited budget to hire AEs.

Cloud 277

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 277

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2022

And I’m going to suggest two that will worry you a lot as you scale — Churn and Sales Cycle — you should track, but not obsess over, until you are well, well past initial traction, that first $1m-$2m ARR. >> Let’s Start with Churn. Absolutely, getting your churn trending downward is important.

Sales Hiring 273

Sales Hiring Scale Churn Metrics 273

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 14, 2020

Sam Jacobs created the Revenue Collective , a group of more than 1700 sales professionals at some of the fastest-growing companies. With chapters across the US, Revenue Collective has broad reach within the sales community. Typically, sales leaders have reduced quota somewhere between 10-50%. You can download the survey here.

Sales Hiring 334

Sales Hiring Sales Forecasting Travel 334

SaaStr

APRIL 7, 2020

In the early days of SaaStr, we wrote a bunch of posts that were controversial at the time, but later, most sales leaders eventually agreed with. That you know even in 1 sales cycle if a VP of Sales is going to work out. As soon as you hear a VP of Sales start to blame her/his own reports for missing a number, it’s over.

Sales Hiring 330

Sales Hiring Sales Retention Churn 330

SaaStr

DECEMBER 2, 2020

My 7 top tips to increase sales quickly. Hire a great VP of Sales. Hire a great VP of Sales, and even if nothing else changes … she’ll increase the revenue per lead by 20–100%+. In one sales cycle or less. More here: How My VP, Sales Doubled Our Sales in 90 Days. Decrease churn.

Scale 317

Scale Sales Hiring Sales B2C 317

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

We put together a basic 50/50/25 VP of Sales comp plan early on at SaaStr, and it seemed time for an update. Incentives are critical, and the VP Sales will likely be the Seemingly Most Expensive hire you ever make. Even if you hire a VP Sales very early, there has to be a clear quota and plan for him or her to hit.

Sales Hiring 351

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Payments 351

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

We’ve talked a ton on SaaStr over the years on how to make sure your VP of Sales and top hires really work out. We can pretty much summarize a lot of it into the following: Your VP of Sales should have lots of experience selling at your average ACV. for that type of sale. That they are the right ones.

Sales Recruiting 332

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 332

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2019

I still see most startups way behind on their 2020 planning, and most importantly, hiring, at this point in the year. The real magic from a Wall Street perspective isn’t that Salesforce is “SaaS” and much of, say, Oracle still mostly isn’t … it’s that Salesforce’s revenue, with net negative churn, completely recurs every year.

Sales Hiring 221

Sales Hiring Scale Headcount Revenue 221

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2019

As you scale your salesteam, unless you are very careful whom you hire and how you train them, incentives being what they are in variable compensation, some negative behavior will creep in. Many call it “Churn and Burn” or other variants. Clawback sales commission for customers that churn quickly. It’s bad for everyone.

Scale 237

Scale Churn Sales Hiring Sales 237

SaaStr

JULY 8, 2024

How much more could you accomplish with your sales organization? Justworks CRO, Robert Lopez, and Director of Sales, Valeria Avila, show you how to create longevity in your sales organization and why it matters. If you’re hiring great people and giving them the tools to succeed, get out of their way. They’ll step up.

Sales Hiring 281

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Education 281

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2020

There’s a set of questions I get asked all the time: Should you pay sales reps on renewals? Should you pay sales reps on upsells a long time down the road? Should you pay sales reps on … ? I am a huge proponent of paying sales professionals well. You want managers managing. for the sales team.

Scale 304

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Churn 304

SaaStr

JUNE 10, 2024

So in the earlier days especially, you’ll be tempted to lean on the sales team to do more than just … sell. Especially because the first 1-2 successful reps you hire will often be a bit of a product expert, and be great at really understanding customer problems. It has some positives, the more you ask sales to do.

Sales Hiring 318

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Customer Success 318

Tom Tunguz

MAY 31, 2021

The cost of a failed account executive hire is about 8 months of lost productivity. What does it cost the organization to hire the wrong executive? In terms of time cost to the startup, a failed executive hire is roughly similar, 9 months. Hiring takes longer and is less fruitful. Looker was one of those examples.

Sales Hiring 197

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Startup Branding 197

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2020

I hear again and again from SaaS founders growing to $5m, $10m ARR or even more that they don’t need a certain VP — with the exception of a VP of Sales. Basically, in SaaS, everyone “gets” that they need a VP of Sales. Hire not just 1-2 reps, but 10. I Need a VP of Sales. Manage a trade show?

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring CTO Hire Sales Recruiting Scale 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 5, 2020

There’s a common thinking that sales teams should be relatively high churn. That the bottom 15-20% of the sales team almost has to churn each year, because it’s survival of the fittest. At Salesforce, at Box, the bottom end of the sales team churns out each year. Usually – no.

Scale 293

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales 293

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2020

A few factors that contribute to high-performing sales teams: High quota attainment. The best startups invest in their sales teams and work hard so most of the reps hit and exceed quota. It does mean a well-oiled machine that hires strong reps of all backgrounds, and gets them the help and training so they can scale up and succeed.

Sales Hiring 362

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Compensation 362

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2024

How do you build GTM efficiency in SMB sales? They’ve reduced CAC and operated with a one or sub-one burn multiple, which is where everyone’s trying to get.But when Kyle joined the company, they had one manager and four reps. Early churn was a massive drag on efficiency. They needed to get their hands on early churn.

Scale 300

Scale SMB Sales Hiring Sales 300

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 21, 2020

We’ve written a lot on SaaStr on how to increase the odds your first management team is a success. How to hire a great VP of Sales (tons on that here ). What a great VP of sales really does. When to hire her (more here ). How to manage customer success. How to hire a great VP of product.

Sales Hiring 357

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting Engineering 357

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

I used to think the biggest problem with mediore VPs was the mediocre folks they hire. That B players hire C players, B+ players hire B- players, etc. When mediocre VPs fall behind their plan: A mediocre VP of Sales tries to hire their way out of a miss. This is certainly true. That burns so much cash.

Sales Hiring 347

Sales Hiring Churn Customer Success Sales 347

SaaStr

AUGUST 6, 2023

As a VP of sales at early stage SaaS companies, what’s your best advice for reducing churn rate? A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later: Make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn. And lead to unnecessary churn.

Churn 238

Churn Sales Hiring Customer Success Onboarding 238

SaaStr

JANUARY 21, 2020

Justin Welsh, former SVP of Sales at PatientPop explains how he started in SaaS in 2009 as the second sales hire at Zocdoc. Justin used Sales Culture to grow a successful PatientPop team to 140 employees and 55 million in revenue. Justin Welsh | SVP Sales @ PatientPop. Want to see more content like this?

Sales Recruiting 312

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Sales 312

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2024

Sign #2: You’re Too Slow to Hire VPs If you want to gauge momentum in a startup, see how quickly they hire VPs. Is it easy to hire mercenary VPs when you’re growing 500%, or you’ve raised $100M? Maybe they made the wrong hire or entered the wrong market. The solution is hiring the right person or relaunching next quarter.

Sales Hiring 301

Sales Hiring Startup Scale SMB 301

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Everything from hiring on the GTM side to layering in a sales-led motion into PLG. Let’s dive into what’s making that hybrid model successful: PLG and Sales Led? Given this, you must understand the role that each facet of the business plays in promoting that product, from marketing and sales to customer service.

Scale 316

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Marketing 316